\\'ith Flashligiit and Rifle ^ 



Often one's face and hands as well as clothes become 

 as black as the branches, stalks, and shrubs, and remain 

 so as a souvenir of the wanderer's journey through the 

 burnt velt, especially when water is scarce and precious, 

 as is often the case. 



Whoever has seen Vesuvius in eruption at night can 

 form some idea of the awful and wonderful sight a 

 gigantic conflagration presents from a distance. If you 

 see it from a hill some miles away and watch it as 

 it moves zigzag fashion, burning more brightly here, 

 there obscured by clouds of smoke, you might almost 

 imagine that you were in Europe and that the flashes 

 of light came from some huge railway station. 



I can see now before my eyes the picture of a mighty 

 fire that raged for days on a hillside, rushing through 

 the gorges and ravines of the high Longido Mountain, 

 some 6,000 feet high, and lighting up by night as clearly 

 as day my camp, which was pitched at the foot of the 

 mountain. 



The steep westerly slopes of the hill make a beautiful 

 picture of wild scenery at all times ; when to this view 

 is added the sight of the leaping flames by night time, 

 to the accompaniment of the cries of frightened animals, 

 the whole forms a never-to-be-forgotten spectacle of 

 the African wilderness — the African wilderness, which 

 here, as in other places, at times has such a look of 

 Northern Europe that the wanderer might almost 

 believe himself at home. . . . 



The mountain seems alive, and in the wild tumult 

 fantastic ghostly appearances, formed by the clouds of 



642 



